By:  Armbrister                                        S.B. No. 326

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to vessels and obstructions in fish passes.

 1-2           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-3           SECTION 1.  Subsections (a) and (b), Section 66.204, Parks

 1-4     and Wildlife Code, are amended to read as follows:

 1-5           (a)  The commission by proclamation may regulate the

 1-6     placement of obstructions, traps, and mooring in fish passes and

 1-7     the marking of restricted areas in any natural or artificial pass

 1-8     that is opened, reopened, dredged, excavated, constructed, or

 1-9     maintained by the department as a fish pass between the Gulf of

1-10     Mexico and an inland bay.

1-11           (b)  No person may operate, possess, or moor a vessel or

1-12     other floating device, or may place any piling, wire, rope, cable,

1-13     net, trap, or other obstruction, in a natural or artificial pass

1-14     opened, reopened, dredged, excavated, constructed, or maintained by

1-15     the department as a fish pass between the Gulf of Mexico and an

1-16     inland bay[,] within the [a] distance [of 2,800 feet] inside the

1-17     pass [measured] from the mouth of the pass where it empties into

1-18     [or opens on] the Gulf of Mexico to a marker or sign erected by the

1-19     department indicating the restricted area.

1-20           [(b)  The department shall erect permanent iron or concrete

1-21     monuments showing the restricted area.]

1-22           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-23     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-1     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-2     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-3     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-4     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-5     passage, and it is so enacted.